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President Obama is the first president to serve eight years and preside over American wars during every single day of his tenure. And that includes starting new "actions" in Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

I don't know if he's concern trolling or if he has a point. I'm too lazy to find out, so I'm going to use this an excuse to mention another idea Modern Monetary Theory. Planet Money did a recent episode on it as a good primer. It may not amount to much but MMT sounds better than UBI. Of course they both point to a post scarcity society that we are heading to which in David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs it is an undercurrent of his thesis.

I wish you were being cynical but sadly you are right.

The founding fathers share your lament.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Ben Franklin.

Ironically it has lost its context

Saudi Arabia scores considerably lower when it comes to freedom than China (by aggregate score):
https://freedomhouse.org/repor...

I mean, women were just allowed to drive in 2018:
https://www.npr.org/2018/06/24...

But they are a favored trade partner focusing on two way oil for weapons deals.

So we arm nations that oppress their citizens more than China. In 2017, Trump signed a $110 billion military sale agreement with Saudi Arabia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

What's this about internet censorship? Oh, Saudi Arabia used Secure Computing, a US corporation, to manage country wide internet monitoring and filtering, not just search.

But oil (and our incessant fear of Iran)...

The $15 wage floor is slightly reminescent of Henry Ford's "$5 day" policy, which bought Ford labor peace and productivity for a few years. Soon enough, others were able to match or exceed Ford's labor rates. Some of it was fueled by productivity and sales, but a lot of it represented more rapid expansion of M2 by banks and the Fed in the 1910s. Forbes on Ford's $5 day NPR

The frightening aspect is price inflation that has already occurred and will accompany a broader application like a $15 minimum wage. Such a tremendous rising wage is a symptom of expansion of credit and money.printing, courtesy of the Federal Reserve since 2008.

I think the problem is that police officers think they're in Iraq, but have absolutely no training to act like they actually are. It might actually help us if police officers had been in Iraq.

Military trained officers actually are less trigger happy and less panicky because they know how to deal with situations minute by minute, and aren't thinking that some idiot with a knife is going to be able to kill them: https://www.npr.org/2016/12/08...

Story of current DNC member running for Congress who abused his girlfriend. She has photos and video evidence.
Bet you haven't heard a peep from them. You will also notice they still endorse him for the seat he is running for.

What does hypocrisy mean?

The chemicals concerned (e.g. NOx, O3) have a low lifespan in the atmosphere and so are not going to make the trip across the Pacific.

Nonsense. Got any more lies which are easily disproven?

ACKCHUELLY, the defunding of hte nuclear waste disposal was one of Obama's campaign promises and was not included in the budget proposal sent to Congress.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101689489
Obama Cuts Funds To Nuclear Waste Repository

President Obama's proposed budget is famous for the huge amounts of spending it includes. But also notable is what's missing: There's no funding to dispose of the waste from the nation's nuclear power plants.

In keeping with a campaign promise, the president has stopped the $8 billion project to prepare Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the nation's nuclear waste repository.

I trust that NPR is a sufficiently liberal-slanted news source acceptable to you leftards.

What Keynesians give you is a responsible adult model of economic behavior - pay off your debts when things are good, so you've got some room to borrow when things are bad.

This is clearly a bald faced lie, as a simple look at the national debt over time shows you.

No it isn't. Your own link shows the fact that you are trying to deny - it shows a decrease in debt (both inflation-adjusted and unadjusted) after WWII. If it went back farther, it would also show debt being paid down earlier in the nation's history.

All you've really done through this whole argument is play semantic games to try to redefine the idea of debt being paid down, because you made a factually untrue statement several comments ago. Instead of admitting the fault and moving on, you have doubled down on ignorance.

If you want even more unequivocal evidence that the U.S. economy was once managed by responsible adults: When the US Paid Off the Entire National Debt

Just admit it. You were wrong.

About time they do this. It's sickening to read about all the crap that went on before, like when Colin Powell conspired with Hillary on how to get away with using their unsecured Blackberries and subvert the reporting and FOIA requirements as well.

https://www.npr.org/sections/t...

And after all that the guy doesn't think he did anything wrong, he just "acted on wrong information".

How Plastic In The Ocean Is Contaminating Your Seafood

Discrimination in a legal aspect is far different than discrimination - or should I say, categorization - by physical attribute. The latter should be allowed in the same way that the former should be defended against. That this article even exists is proof that some loud folks believe both types of discrimination listed above are the same. Otherwise, how could you consider that police using skin color in any aspect would be anything but normal, unless you somehow consider that to be wrong on some moral, ethical, or legal level? That's a problem, because at that point, it's just an attempt to whitewash reality with what today is considered politically correct. In fact, it sounds like .

Searching for suspects or describing victims based on known attributes is just a rational, good practice. Imagine if police were not allowed to consider gender, skin color, age, hair color, eye color, height, or weight in their official records. Imagine if it were hospitals that were not allowed to use those traits when treating patients.

Sounds absurd to you, like this is one of those 'taken to a logical extreme' examples that no one would ever consider?

Well, I've got news for you. It's already creeping in. Apparently the practice of using someone's apparent or legal gender and legal name for police reports is deeply upsetting to folks. The TG community calls it 'deadnaming,' and considers the use of the original or legal name to be violence, done both to the victim and to the TG community.

They're actually upset that the legal name and gender are being used by police in any capacity.

There's a good point in there, where their preferred name might be known and can be used while interviewing folks. The thing is, they say it like it's new, like there's not a 'known aliases' field somewhere. Or perhaps 'important notes: TG male to female, named X'. The folks advocating against deadnaming don't want that though. They don't want notes. They want this to be used for the official, primary fields. They state that even bringing up name in a historical reference about the individual should be disallowed, and go on to include things like parents (who might not approve) and so on.

Now, this isn't like other minority rights issues. For example, marriage is a legal definition that confers real legal entitlements, and the LGBT* marriage rights is about getting official recognition for any couples regardless of gender (which is what we should be doing, and is so obvious I have a problem even considering alternative viewpoints) . But that's not what this is. This is lying about reality to make someone feel good about themselves, or at least, not make them feel bad, or in the case that they've died, getting others to feel good knowing it won't happen to them.

Those advocating for absolute validity of personal feelings are going to be constantly confronted with the premise that the physical world doesn't care much about political correctness, and they're not going to just make their peace with it. I actually worry that we're going to have to legally protect concepts like critical thinking and scientific method as they're nickle and dimed away over time. ... well, I went off on a rant there. Anyway, let's not let political correctness become legally enforced stupidity.

In opening remarks on Wednesday, Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, acknowledged that Facebook had been "too slow to act" in 2016 against the Kremlin-backed campaign that was designed to sow discord among American voters. "That's on us," she said, describing Moscow's meddling as "completely unacceptable" and a violation of Facebook's values "and of the country we love."

The US has a long history of meddling in foreign elections. The US also has a long history of broadcasting radio into the East Bloc. And under the First Amendment, Americans have a right to hear the views and speech of foreigners.

How about worrying about the activities of the US government vis-a-vis US citizens? This is what Edward Bernays, the founder of US public relations had to say, about US government propaganda:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country

And the CIA appears to have been manipulating news media in the US since the 1950s as part of Operation Mockingbird:

According to writer Deborah Davis, Operation Mockingbird recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda network and oversaw the operations of front groups. CIA support of front groups was exposed after a 1967 Ramparts magazine article reported that the National Student Association received funding from the CIA. In the 1970s, Congressional investigations and reports also revealed Agency connections with journalists and civic groups. None of these reports, however, mentions an Operation Mockingbird coordinating or supporting these activities.

I think he's referring to this:

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/01...

Cutting regulations for accreditation.

For whatever reasons, everyone valued gold

It's no mystery. You actually mentioned a few of the reasons yourself. Basically, something had to fill the role of commodity money, and gold was by far the most suitable candidate. Here's an interesting article that explains it much better than I can. Chances are, if intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, they use gold as money too.

It's more complicated than that. See for example: https://www.npr.org/sections/a...

I had forgotten about that, but it's really limited in scope and that's not what is pushing the current censorship. What's really going on is that the Big Tech oligarchy leans heavily left, and they ramped up their censorship to disparately impact conservatives right before the midterms. And if they're going to be political about their censorship, I don't think they deserve legal protection under the law for their content.

Which is why the *only* solution is to pass a law so that Facebook, Twitter, ISPs, etc are not held legally liable for the content other people disseminate on their platform.

Are you being sarcastic, or do you not know that they already enjoy this legal protection?

It's more complicated than that. See for example: https://www.npr.org/sections/a...

Really, it's more complicated than my earlier post suggested. The issue is not merely whether Facebook is protected *now*: it's whether they can count on that protection going forward. As the recent congressional hearings with Zuckerberg made clear, Facebook is terrified of what laws Congress might come up with to punish them, and they are currently scrambling to take steps to *prevent* that happening. Hence the renewed interest in automated speech filters and so on. Hence TFA.

And this issue isn't confined to Facebook, of course. Really, it affects anyone and everyone who is providing a platform for people to communicate with each other.

My post was overly simplistic, because a single law isn't going to fix the situation-- laws can always be amended or superseded. What is needed is constant vigilance against laws that hold such platforms liable. The only thing that could help in a more lasting manner would be a Supreme Court decision invalidating such laws. I'm not legally knowledgeable enough to know if that outcome is possible or likely.

See here. Crypto-currency is perfect for this.

Also, I'm guessing Venezuela would be doing a lot better if the US would stop sanctioning them. There's no excuse for those sanctions. Especially when we back dictatorships like Saudi Arabia. I was trying to figure out why we bothered until I noticed our private corporations seized a bunch of oil fields owned by Venezuela when they defaulted on loans.

Always follow the money...

Electoral College, learn about it, and realize that they aren't making a vote, they are fulfilling a role, and that each and every state has chosen to follow the vote of the people in the state, with the only slight differences being the cases of Maine and Nebraska, and even that's had minimal impact. States deciding to choose electors based on anything else would be a laughable outcome, and they just aren't going to do it. And they don't cotton too well to people who don't fall in line. As a result, the reality is? The Electoral College is just a pro forma sham, that doesn't really matter except to distort public interaction, and Donald Trump lost the real vote that matters, that of the people.

Then he lied about it. Which just shows his own deceptive practices, because even he admitted that the popular vote was what he considered important. People who try to ignore the popular vote (mostly ones that lose it) and rely on the Electoral College, are so deeply wrong, that they don't ever want to admit it. Some of them, like yourself, even make up sham excuses about how somehow the Electoral College does something to protect small states. They're wrong too.

I'm sorry, Lynnwood Rooster, I know you are committed in your partisan myopia to a complete and utter defense of the Electoral College, today, but since I also know you would completely change your tune if the circumstances were different, it's not exactly persuasive. You're not committed to any kind of moral position, you will simply believe you are at war with EastAsia, that the chocolate ration has increased, and that wrapping yourself in the Constitution will justify any malfeasance.

At least you're committed to that, so we know what you'll keep on doing.

>It's prevented terrorists from building and detonating a nuclear bomb.

Getting the plans to build a nuclear is probably not that difficult, especially if you have the money to pay for it. The thing that has kept terrorists from building a nuke is the fact that acquiring the necessary materials to assemble the bomb is extremely difficult. If you have the materials, though, even a truck driver could build one

And as the court order specifies, the files can still legally be "emailed, mailed, securely transmitted or otherwise published within the United States." https://www.npr.org/2018/08/27...

How about Brazil? Their homicide rate is 55 per 100,000 -- a whole order of magnitude (and change) greater! And they have strict gun control, but that only applies to the law-abiding. Criminals, meanwhile, are getting their guns from the police. Now there is a movement to basically scrap it and go with an American-style right to bear arms.

I deliberately linked NPR, not a gun advocacy site, but the articles really aren't that much different between them.

Ok, now you're starting to grasp at straws here to justify your racism (which wasn't as obvious until this last post).

Ah, yes. As soon as your arguments are exposed for the fraud that they are it's time to whip out the "you're a racist!" card. Nice one. Sure you don't want to call me a nazi, too? Then I can call you a pedophile and things should go swimingly from there.

So here's some context: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19t... this is the Confederate constitution. Notice how negros of the African race are considered property.

Duh. They were property at the time.

Notice negro is used as an adjective to slave, as to point out that other races of slave weren't to allowed but the black man is OK.

Now that's just stupid. The fact that the law at that point in time only allowed for the enslavement of blacks in no way means that "n*gger" is synonymous with slave. Nor does it change the fact that there were free blacks. Nor does it change the fact that free blacks were themselves often slaveholders. Nor does it change the fact that at an earlier time there were white slaves, some of whom were owned by blacks. All of which you just conveniently ignored in you oh-so-honest search for "context".

Now, let's jump over to the term cracker. https://www.npr.org/sections/c... This word as it turns out is of European (i.e. white) decent. It's not a term black people made up, it's a term you called yourselves centuries before African slaves hit the Americas.

That's right, it's OUR word, and you're not allowed to use it. You racist bastard.

You wanting to call people racists terms is nothing more than you attempting to exert superiority over others.

I have absolutely no interest in calling anyone "racist terms". I've never called anyone a n*gger, a kike, a spic, a chink, a dune-coon, or a wop. I did jokingly call friends fags, but that's about it. I also had a good friend who insisted on referring to me as "my nigga"; even in that context I never responded in kind because I think it's a stupid word which should be retired from the lexicon. But IF I wanted to use it I should be able to do so. Forbidding speech because you think it's "hateful" is not just retarded, it's fucking evil.

I could at least give white people credit for confusion with n*gger and nigga where that hard "er" crosses that line between cute and racial slur, but that's not even the case you're trying to make. They have an argument to make as when you're not using the term everyday, they're the same to you and at least they're trying to beore culturally inclusive, but you're just being a dick.

You're the cunt arguing for speech codes, so yeah, I will definitely be a dick towards you. If you weren't creating arbitrary categories of forbidden speech and trying to force them on others we wouldn't have this problem.

Ok, now you're starting to grasp at straws here to justify your racism (which wasn't as obvious until this last post). So here's some context: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19t... this is the Confederate constitution. Notice how negros of the African race are considered property. Notice negro is used as an adjective to slave, as to point out that other races of slave weren't to allowed but the black man is OK. Now, let's jump over to the term cracker. https://www.npr.org/sections/c... This word as it turns out is of European (i.e. white) decent. It's not a term black people made up, it's a term you called yourselves centuries before African slaves hit the Americas. Now as for the middle East and other parts of Africa, these terms aren't used to describe black or white people at all. The closest you're going to get are Nigerians, but even there it's not the hard n*gger that whites use in anger to describe Africans here in the States and parts of the UK. You wanting to call people racists terms is nothing more than you attempting to exert superiority over others. I could at least give white people credit for confusion with n*gger and nigga where that hard "er" crosses that line between cute and racial slur, but that's not even the case you're trying to make. They have an argument to make as when you're not using the term everyday, they're the same to you and at least they're trying to beore culturally inclusive, but you're just being a dick.

Ah yes, a conspiracy theory believing nutcase. For Trump to not have had relations with those women requires three people to lie:

• The porn actresses in question (both of them)
• Michael Cohen also has to be lying under oath

Keeping in mind that Trump's story is inconsistent, the evidence shows that

• Trump had relations with both women
• He paid them both hush money

But, hey, if you believe conspiracy theories, maybe you're also one of those idiots who believe the Earth is flat

Trump was making the wrong argument. Like many of us, he seemed to misunderstand the relevant provision of campaign finance law. In fact, the president might be better off if his campaign had supplied the hush money.

But not by Russia!. https://www.motherjones.com/po... https://www.npr.org/2016/04/19... https://nypost.com/2016/04/21/...

When I hear Venezuela, I think of Socialism and guess what: Venezuelas bread wars with food scarce government accuses bakers of hoarding

So I guess the propaganda continues.

Even if 8 in 10 were started by people?

https://www.npr.org/sections/t...

Surely that alters the calculus a little?

You act like the NRA is some sort of boogy man out there operating against the will of the US public.

Yeah, about that.

https://www.rollingstone.com/p...

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/01...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news...

Illegal immigrants — the overwhelmingly vast majority of them from South America...

This page lists all of South America at 6%. Mexico is 56%, which certainly isn't an "overwhelmingly vast majority", and Central America at 15%.

...have killed far more Americans over the years, than the 3000 killed on the day of 9/11.

Is this the part of the article you're talking about? If so, I've highlighted a couple key points regarding the number.

In the aggregate, Trump said, immigrants in the country illegally are responsible for tens of thousands of crimes. He pointed to a 2011 study by the Government Accountability Office which estimated undocumented immigrants had committed some 25,000 homicides, 42,000 robberies and nearly 70,000 sex offenses. That estimate was extrapolated from a survey of 1,000 undocumented immigrants held in state and federal prisons. It offered no time frame in which the crimes might have been committed and no basis for comparison with the native-born population.

The article also cites a study that says that illegal immigrants in Texas were less likely to be convicted of homicide, sexual assault, or larceny than native citizens.

Illegal immigrants — the overwhelmingly vast majority of them from South America — have killed far more Americans over the years, than the 3000 killed on the day of 9/11. By your logic — punishing the countries, whose expats have done us wrong — we should've overrun Mexico and proceeded further South by now.

It looks like they should have opened their wallets for Trump a little more.

Vocal support is good and all. It gets attention. But money, money, money makes the world go around.

Seems like paper ballots + presenting gov't issued photo ID to receive said ballot is a much better process in both ways.

Yeah, but according to some, a simple common sense solution like this is apparently "racist" these days.......

Where "some" is a federal court.

Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans.

In response to claims that intentional racial discrimination animated its action, the State offered only meager justifications. Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist.

But is SHOULD go away because the Russians are on the "right" side now...

Facebook just busted the Russians for supporting anti-Trump demonstrations.
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/31...

Also, during the 2016 election, the Russians backed Bernie...
https://www.usatoday.com/story...

This should be enough to prove the Russia is one of the "good guys" and should be left alone to meddle -- as long as they are on the right side.

High-Paying Trade Jobs Sit Empty, While High School Grads Line Up For University https://www.npr.org/sections/e...

Where are they going to learn those skills? Even intelligent people have trouble discerning legitimate trade schools from all the for-profit "universities" that prey off predatory loans and fudge graduation and placement rates. The US needs to go the European route with 2 tracks-university and technical/trades. This would reduce demand for college and make it cheaper (colleges won't have to up tuition to pay for all the extra perks and facilities to recruit students) and we will have plenty of skilled workers in trades.

High-Paying Trade Jobs Sit Empty, While High School Grads Line Up For University https://www.npr.org/sections/e...

From a source:

The idea, however, is inspired by a real-world event. Back in 1999, Monsanto sued a Canadian canola farmer, Percy Schmeiser, for growing the company's Roundup-tolerant canola without paying any royalty or "technology fee." Schmeiser had never bought seeds from Monsanto, so those canola plants clearly came from somewhere else.

More likely you're being trolled. Remember, Russia is paying people to post and antagonize both sides. Divide and conquer.
https://www.npr.org/2018/02/21...

And this is the problem.

In the future I can see it now. You can only buy seeds from monsato if you want to grow anything.

This doesn't seem to relate to GMO technology anymore, it's just your opinions on market economy. Monsanto hasn't held the patent to glyphosate for nearly two decades, nor it's resistant seeds. They're also far from the only biotech and seed-producing company. Even if they somehow started approaching a monopoly, regulatory agencies in every market should prevent them from anti-competitive practices.

As for the farmers being wrongfully sued. That was true. Google it. Farmers who weren't even using Monsanto seeds got sued because neighboring crops had their seeds spread to neighboring lands.

It's a mess. You shouldn't need anything special from a corporation to grow things. The fact that if I buy seeds from monsato then I have to also buy their fertilizer or my seeds won't grow. That's bullshit. You should not be able to patent food.

You are far from the first Monsanto opponent I've come across, and almost like clockwork do these really old debunked myths pop up about suing farmers for wind-blown contamination. See this NPR article, Myth 2: https://www.npr.org/sections/t...

Also, do you have any source that Monsanto requires a specific fertilizer to grow their crops? You're not confusing fertilizer with pesticide, are you? Because it sounds to me like you're just making it up.

The FBI will love having Best Buy develop "personal relationships" with people in their homes:
https://www.npr.org/sections/t...

Your dentist already has microphones embedded in your teeth and the cable guy bugged your place, isn’t this a little redundant?

The FBI will love having Best Buy develop "personal relationships" with people in their homes:
https://www.npr.org/sections/t...

No, that's not what happened.

The company says it made the change because Congress has passed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, meant to crack down on sex trafficking of children. It was approved by a landslide in the Senate earlier this week, as NPR's Alina Selyukh has reported, but has been met with criticism by free speech advocates and sex workers.

Your version frames the action as a settlement via negotiation.

Reddit reacted similarly, from that same article:

Reddit has also announced policy changes this week. It said that users could not use the site to "solicit or facilitate any transaction or gift involving certain goods and services...

Both these actions, and others, were done BEFORE the legislation was even signed.

Trump has not yet signed the bill [March 23, 2018 3:52 PM ET], which is known as FOSTA. It passed in the House by 388-25 and in the Senate by 97-2.

I should have said, "in general" after the first sentence. That was confusing and kind of a weird way to say that.

My father isn't a brain surgeon, but a lung doctor. When a hospital REALLY needs his services, the contracts they offer him reflect this need. He works a lot harder, putting in more hours and splitting his time between his private practice, and other gigs, family, exercise, whatever, with the hospital that needs his service. Eventually, if the situation became bad enough, you'd have all sorts of not-exactly-qualified people offering medical services because the demand was so high. This is what happens during wars. I think the flex within one doctor is somewhere between 100%-200% sustainably, and could likely go up to 300%-400%, since there are something close to 120 waking hours in a week. With pilots, there isn't this kind of flex, since there is governmental action requiring them to not work insane hours. Doctors, especially the older ones, are used to that kind of abuse after their internships. This is actually how hospitals deal with these problems now - they work their interns like slaves.

Likewise, when the price for wheat drops significantly, it starts being used for all sorts of bizarre things.

There are not enough jobs.

There are more jobs than people out of work

GROWING problem

You sure?

"The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back...." - Barack Obama sneering at Mitt Romney, October 22, 2012, Third Presidential Debate https://www.npr.org/2012/10/22...

right? Business want cheap labor. The left doesn't want to be unnecessarily cruel. Personally, I'd like to see us legalize drugs so Mexico & South America can stop being hell holes and maybe fix out foreign policy. While I'm at it tariffs should be based on working conditions & environmental impact.

Section IV of the Rule defines affected providers as:

"establishments primarily engaged in operating and/or providing access to
transmission facilities and infrastructure that they own and/or lease for the transmission of voice, data,
text, sound, and video using wired communications networks. Transmission facilities may be based on a
single technology or a combination of technologies."

https://www.npr.org/sections/t...

Where do you see a "don't called it 'the internet'" clause in the Rule?